


Whatever It Took

by shutterbug



Category: Succession (TV 2018)
Genre: Boxers, Developing Relationship, F/M, Pre-Canon, Public Sex, Relationship(s), Semi-Public Sex, Sex, Underwear
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-27
Updated: 2019-07-27
Packaged: 2020-07-20 15:08:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,862
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19994233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shutterbug/pseuds/shutterbug
Summary: After Tom and Shiv move in together, Shiv replaces all of Tom’s underwear. When she shares her reason why, Tom has to force himself to come on board.Set pre-series.





	Whatever It Took

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to everyone in this small fandom who has given this a read! I really appreciate it, and would love to receive any feedback you’d like to give. Thank you so much, all. <3

Before he met Shiv— _correction:_ before he became Shiv’s live-in _boy_ friend, he had worn boxer-briefs. Snug, but not _too_ snug. Comfortable, while keeping everything, uh, in its proper place. 

In shades of black, grey, and navy blue, they were, until recently, his underwear of choice. 

But, once they’d moved in together, Shiv had not so much _changed his mind_ as forced the change upon him. One day, when he had opened his dresser drawer to select a pair of, erm, _drawers,_ he had found that his entire collection of male intimates—underwear, undershirts, even _socks_ —had been vanquished by an entirely new, crisp set of big-city-slicker undergarments. 

Puzzled, Tom stood naked before his open dresser, fresh out of the shower, droplets of water still warm and bulbous on his skin. He spun around to peer at the bed, eyebrow raised. 

In their bed, Shiv slept on. She turned once, then again—and again—like a stunningly beautiful, pale rotisserie chicken. 

Turning back to the drawer, Tom studied the striped and solid conquistadors displayed before him, folded with meticulous neatness, as if they were the centerpiece of a department store. Some boasted all-over patterns. Others delicate tones of lavender and sky blue. 

Without any other choice, he plucked the top pair from the pile and pulled them up his legs and over his hips. 

Over dinner, Shiv came clean. 

She batted daintily-mascaraed eyelashes at him over the table, leaning forward. “So,” she said, raising her glass of Chardonnay to her lips. She paused for a long draw. “Do you like them?”

Tom blinked. He glanced at the appetizers that their server had just laid on the table. “The bruschetta?” He shrugged. “Sure, they look fine.” 

Shiv’s lips stretched into a thin smile. Her eyes sparkled in the candlelight. “No, not the brus _chetta_.” 

Her machine-gun-laugh startled him. The thrill of it all—the restaurant, the atmosphere, her attention—ricocheted from one side of his ribcage to the other. 

“God, Tom,” she breathed with another laugh. “No, the _boxers_.” 

He tilted his head and froze, a piece of bruschetta half-way to his mouth. 

Shiv’s mouth went sideways. “Bruschetta is _never_ good.” 

He returned his piece to the plate. “Then why did you order it?” 

“Because I can.” 

He didn’t want to state the obvious, but he spoke anyway. “Well, Shiv, I mean, so can _any_ one. It’s on the menu.” 

“I wasn’t talking about the damn bruschetta, Tom, oh, my God.” 

“Oh.” He resisted the impulse to look down at his own crotch. “Right.” 

She smiled. A Grinch-who-just-hijacked-Christmas-smile. 

_You’re a mean one_ , he nearly sang to her. Instead, he smiled back. “The boxers—yeah, they’re great.” 

“Yeah?” Shiv, who sat to his direct left—rather than across from him—leaned closer to him. 

The pleasure in her voice lit sparks in his chest. They traveled, hot crackles within his limbs, and made it difficult to sit still. He summoned all his self-control to stop himself from squirming. 

“Oh, yeah! Definitely, honey,” he replied. “Roomy. It’s like”—he waved his hands over his lap. “It’s like my genitals can breathe, you know?” 

Her face twisted. “Oh, God. Don’t say ‘genitals’.” 

“No. Right. Sorry,” he said, then pressed his lips together for a supplemental silent apology. 

“Never again.” 

“Got it.” 

“Okay.”

Drowning in self-consciousness, he munched absently on the bruschetta, tomato and basil coating his tongue. _They were good enough_ , he thought, then bit another in half. 

As he chewed, a loud _crunch_ in his ears, he flinched at the touch of Shiv’s hand. Shiv’s hand, suddenly and _definitely,_ on his soft, very-much-in-public penis, under the table. 

Half-panicked, he glanced around, his eyes hopping from table to table. Nobody seemed to notice Shiv’s behavior. And, if they did, they feigned ignorance. Or didn’t care. 

He forced his bite of bruschetta down his throat. It scratched going down, making his eyes water. “Shiv, what the _fuck_?” 

“Oh, come on, Tom,” she crooned. “Don’t _‘what the fuck’_ me.” As she spoke, her fingers lowered the zipper of his fly. Her hand snaked inside his trousers and easily slipped inside his boxers to touch him properly, fully, skin to warm skin. 

He inhaled sharply and nearly choked on a mouthful of wine. 

Shiv’s mouth hovered less than an inch from his ear. “Why else do you think I got these for you?” As if to emphasize the point, she squeezed him. His dick grew hard in her hand, and he _felt_ her smile widen against his ear. “I should be able to touch you anytime I want.” 

He would have found it hot if they weren’t in plain view of so many people. Sure, he enjoyed being seen with Shiv, but not _that_ seen. He tried to sit taller and press his thighs together; he tried to take himself away from her without leaping out of the chair. “Maybe if we had a private space, you know?” 

Shiv met his eyes with an unmistakable my-way-or-the-highway stare and, with her free hand, pulled his knees apart. His balls fell between his legs and his dick popped forward, into her palm. 

He sucked his breath into his mouth, between his teeth, as her fingers curled around him. 

Seconds later, their entrees were delivered. 

Jesus Christ. He still had to make it through their _entrees_. 

He wasn’t sure that he could. Not when Shiv’s hand pulled at him and stroked him at her own pace and leisure _._ He grinned tightly at the waiter when he reappeared at their table. 

“Everything all right?” 

One look at their table and this _idiot_ would have known that they had not yet touched their food. 

But Tom gave him the _o-kay_ with a hand gesture. With a croak, he added, “Oh. Perfect.” 

As their server walked away, Tom turned his head to Shiv. “Come on, Shiv, please, not here, okay?” 

She slid the tip of her tongue across the bottom edges of her top teeth. “What, you’re telling me you don’t like this?” Then she gripped him harder. 

He made a feeble attempt to poke at his slow-roasted chicken, but dropped his fork and spread his hand on the table when Shiv smoothed her thumb over the head of his dick. Once, slowly. Twice, harder. Faster, harder. Over and over, until he bowed forward and almost put his forehead into his parsnips. 

“That’s it,” she whispered. “Bend, Tom. Bend.” 

_Bend?_ He squeezed his eyes shut. His head clouded with confusion. He downed the rest of his Pinot Noir. 

He had never come in a public place. To be honest, he didn’t want to—a couple of covert touches were one thing, but a full-on barely-restrained orgasm would be another. But Shiv was trying to push him toward a climax, unrelenting in the pressure and smooth twists of her hand. She started demanding it, her lips brushing his ear as she whispered, “Come, Tom. I want you to come.” 

But his groin tensed and his asshole puckered. His whole body resisted, too conscious of onlookers. It wasn’t going to happen. 

“I _can’t,_ Shiv.” He couldn’t look at her, so he let his head fall, chin to chest, leaning with his elbows on the table. 

For a second, she didn’t move. Then she moved in a hurry, releasing him, extracting her hand from his pants, and pushing her chair away from the table in one fluid motion. She seemed to take his inability to climax as a personal offense, glaring at him as she stood up and shouldered her purse. 

“Shiv,” he pleaded, reaching for her. “Wait.” His still-present erection made him hesitant to follow her, and he hoped she would stay put, out of pity, if nothing else. 

When she turned around and headed for the exit, he was left with no other option; he stuffed his hands in his pockets as he stumbled after her, hoping that, if anyone glanced his way, they would see the bulge in his trousers as an innocuous balloon caused by his balled fists and not his reluctant arousal. 

“Shiv!” 

She kept walking, hair swaying. 

Good God, it was hard to run with a hard-on. 

He managed to catch her and hooked her around the elbow, pulling her to a stop. “Shiv, sweetie, it’s not about _you_ ,” he said. “I just need to relax, otherwise, I can’t—”

She spun and shook him off. “Yeah. Sure, fine,” she said, cool and calm. “I get it.” 

He matched her steps now, his erection flagging, as she started back down the street. “I’m not sure you do.” He chuckled nervously. 

“No, I do.” 

“Okay.” Uncertainty coated his lungs like a layer of tar, impeding his breaths. “It’s just...you seem mad.” 

“I’m not mad.” 

“Really?” 

“Yeah, I just have to—you know, I have work to do.” 

“You do? Now?” 

“Yeah, well, it’s a twenty-four hour news cycle.” 

Every _click_ of her heels stabbed at his heart. He swallowed and tried to reach for her hand. At his touch, she slid her hands into her pockets. 

_But we were having dinner,_ he wanted to say. _We had a reservation. Why would we make a reservation if you planned to work?_ “Okay,” he said, deflating. “Uh, okay, well...I’ll, uh…” 

She turned her head and, for a second, looked at him. “It’s no big deal. I’ll see you later, okay?” 

“Okay. Yeah.” He slowed to a stop, watching her walk away, then called out. “Shiv?” 

She stopped and peered over her shoulder. 

“I’m sorry,” he said, not quite sure what he was apologizing for, but it seemed like the only thing left to say. 

She acknowledged the attempt with a half-shrug, half-nod. He hailed a cab when she turned the corner. 

“No big deal,” she’d said. But it _felt_ like a big deal, and he resolved, as he comforted his scared, sunken heart with a warm shower, to do what he could to keep it from happening again. Or, in his case, _not_ happening. 

It took a couple weeks of concentrated practice, but he learned to, more or less, come on command. And come quietly. He jacked off under his desk at work and came silently into his fancy, pastel-pink pocket square. He did it in the men’s bathroom, too—the busy one, not the private one near the executive suites. 

Then, when he felt ready enough—when he could stamp down all the butterflies that threatened to flutter up his throat and out his mouth—he let Shiv take hold of his dick on their balcony. On the other side of the wall, in their living room, dinner party guests stood feet away; Tom could make out the lines of individual conversations. He drew a deep breath and forced himself to relax, but strained against the wall when Shiv pumped his orgasm out of him. Afterwards, Shiv grinned, wiping her hand on his shirttail before rejoining the party. He tried to clean himself up, but didn’t quite succeed, eventually opting to button his trousers, escape to the bedroom, and change his soggy underwear. 

Whatever it took, he told himself, pulling on a fresh pair of boxers. Whatever it took to keep her happy.   



End file.
